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Article Title: Self-Narration in Social Life

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READING EIGHTEEN

Self-Narration in Social Life Kenneth Gergen

Source: Gergen, K.J. (1994) Realities and Relationships: Soundings in Social Construction, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, Chapter 8.

Enriching the range of theoretical discourse with the particular hope of expanding the potential for human practices is one of the central challenges for constructionist scholarship. One of the most inviting theoretical departures, because of its affinity with constructionist metatheory, arises from relational theory, the attempt to account for human action in terms of relational process. It attempts to move beyond the single individual to acknowledge the reality of relationship. Here, I want to propose a relational view of self-conception, one that views self-conception not as an individual's personal and private cognitive structure but as discourse about the self - the performance of languages available in the public sphere. I replace the traditional concern with conceptual categories (self-concepts, schemas, self-esteem), with the self as a narration rendered intelligible within ongoing relationships.

This, then, is a story about stories · and most particularly, stories of the self. Most of us begin our encounters with stories in childhood. Through fairy tales, folktales, and family stories we receive our first organized accounts of human action. Stories continue to absorb us as we read novels, biography, and history; they occupy us at the movies, at the theater, and before the television set. And, possibly because of this intimate and long-standing acquaintanceship, stories also serve as a critical means by which we make ourselves intelligible within the social world. We tell extended stories about our childhoods, our relations with family members, our years at school, our first love affair, the development of our thinking on a given subject, and so on. We also tell stories about last night's party, this morning's crisis, or lunch with a companion. We may even create a story about a near collision on the way to work or about scorching last night's dinner. In each case, we use the story form to identify ourselves to others and to ourselves. [. . .]

Yet, to say that we use stories to make ourselves comprehensible does not go far enough. Not only do we tell our lives as stories; there is also a significant sense in which our relationships with each other are lived out in narrative form. For White and Epston (1990), 'persons give meaning to their lives and relationships by storying their experience' (p. 13). The ideal life, Nietzsche proposed, is one that corresponds to the ideal story; each act is coherently related to all others with nothing to spare (Nehamas, 1985). More cogently, Hardy (1968) has written that 'we dream in narrative, daydream in narrative, remember, anticipate, hope, despair, believe, doubt, plan, revise, ci;iticize, construct, gossip, learn, hate and love by narrative' (p. 5). Elaborating on tl:}is view, Macintyre (1981) proposes that enacted narratives form the basis of moral

248 PART THREE READING EIGHTEEN

character. My analysis will stop short of saying that lives are narrative events (in agreement with Mink, 1969). Stories are, after all, forms of accounting, and it seems misleading to equate the account with its putative object. However, narrative accounts are embedded within social action; they render events socially visible and typically establish expectations for future events. Because the events of daily life are immersed in narrative, they become laden with a storied sense: they acquire the reality of 'a beginning', 'a low point', 'a climax', 'an ending', and so on. People live out the events in this way and, along with others, they index them in just this way. This is not to say that life copies art, but rather, that art becomes the vehicle through which the reality of life is made manifest. In a significant sense, then, we live by stories - both in the telling and the realizing of the self.

[. .. ]

The character of self-narrative

[ .. .] For our purposes here, the term 'self-narrative' will refer to an individual's account of the relationship among self-relevant events across time. In developing a self-narrative we establish coherent connections among life events (Cohler, 1982; Kohli, 1981). Rather than see our life as simply 'one damned thing after another', we formulate a story in which life events are systematically related, rendered intelligible by their place in a sequence or 'unfolding process' (de Waele and Harre, 1976). Our present identity is thus not a sudden and mysterious event but a sensible result of a life story. [. . .]

Before embarking on this analysis I must say a word about the relationship between the concept of self-narrative and related theoretical notions. The concept of self-narrative in particular bears an affinity with a variety of constructs

· developed in other domains. First, in cognitive psychology the concepts of scripts (Schank and Abelson, 1977), story schema (Mandler, 1984), predictability tree (Kelly and Keil, 1985), and narrative thought (Britton and Pellegrini, 1990) have all been used to account for the psychological basis for understanding and/or directing sequences of action across time. In contrast to the cognitive program, with its search for universal cognitive processes, rule-role theorists (such as Harre and Secord, 1972) and constructivists (see, for example, Mancuso and Sarbin's [1983] treatment of 'narrative grammar') tend to emphasize the cultural contingency of various psychological states. Thus, the cognitivist's presumption of a narrative base of personal action is retained but with a greater sensitivity to the sociocultural basis of such narratives. Bruner's 0986, 1990) work on narratives falls somewhere between these two orientations, holding to a view of universal cognitive function while simultaneously placing strong emphasis on cultural meaning systems. Phenomenologists (see Carr, 1984; Josselson and Lieblich, 1993; Polkinghorne, 1988), existentialists (see Charme's [1984] analysis of Sartre), and personologists (McAdams, 1993) are also concerned with individual internal process (often indexed as 'experience') but typically eschew the cognitivist search for predication and control of individi,ial behavior and replace the emphasis on cultural determination with a more humanistic investment in the self as author or agent.

GERGEN I SELF-NARRATION IN SOCIAL LIFE 249

In contrast to all these approaches, which place their major emphasis on the individual, I wish to consider self-narratives as forms of social accounting or public discourse. In this sense, narratives are conversational resources, constructions open to continuous alteration as interaction progresses. Persons in this case do not consult an internal script, cognitive structure, or apperceptive mass for information or guidance; they do not interpret or 'read the world' through narrative lenses; they do not author their own lives. Rather, the self­narrative is a linguistic implement embedded within conventional sequences of action and employed in relationships in such a way as to sustain, enhance, or impede various forms of action. As linguistic devices, narratives may be used to indicate future actions, but they are not themselves the cause or determinant basis for such actions. In this sense, self-narratives function much like oral histories or morality tales within a society. They are cultural resources that serve such social purposes as self-identification, self-justification, self-criticism, and social solidification. This approach joins with those that emphasize the sociocultural origins of narrative construction, though it is not intended to endorse a cultural determinism - it is through interacting with others that we acquire narrative skills, not through being acted upon. It also agrees with those concerned with personal engagement in narrative, but it replaces the emphasis on the self-determining ego with social interchange.

Scholars concerned with narratives are sharply divided on the issue of truth value: many hold that narratives have the potential to bear truth, while others argue that narratives do not reflect but construct reality. [. .. J Both in science and in daily life, the stories serve as communal resources that people use in ongoing relationships. From this standpoint narratives do not reflect so much as they create the sense of 'what is true'. Indeed, it is largely because of existing narrative forms that 'telling the truth' is an intelligible act. The special ways in which this is so will be further amplified in the following pages.

The structuring of narrative accounts

If narratives are demanded neither by cognition nor the world as it is, then what account can be given of their properties or forms? From the constructionist standpoint, the properties of well-formed narratives are culturally and historically situated. They are byproducts of people's attempts to relate through discourse, in much the same way that styles of painting serve as a means of mutual co­ordination within communities of artists or specific tactics and countertactics become fashionable within various sports. [. . .)

It is interesting in this context to inquire into contemporary narrative conventions. What are the requirements for telling an intelligible story within the present-day culture of the West? The question is particularly significant, since an elucidation of these conventions for structuring stories sensitizes us to the limits of self-identity. To understand how narratives must be structured within the culture is to press against the edges of identity's envelope - to discover the limits to identifying oneself as a human agent in good standing; it is also to determine what forms must be maintained in order to acquire credibility as a teiler of truth. The structure of proper storytelling precedes the events about which 'truth is told'; to go beyond the conventions is to engage in an idiot's tale. If the narrative

250 PART THREE READING EIGHTEEN

fails to approximate conventional forms, the telling becomes nonsensical. Thus, rather than being driven by facts truth telling is largely governed by a forestructure of narrative conventions.

[. . .] The following criteria in particular appear to be central in constructing a

narrative intelligible to significant segments of contemporary culture:

Establishing a valued endpoint An acceptable story must first establish a goal, an event to be explained, a state to be reached or avoided, an outceme of significance or, more informally, a 'point'. To relate that one walked north for two blocks, east for three, and then turned left on Pine Street would constitute an impoverished story, but if this description were a prelude to finding an affordable apartment, it would approximate an acceptable story. The selected endpoint is typically saturated with value: it is understood to be desirable or undesirable. The endpoint may, for example, be the protagonist's well-being ('how I narrowly escaped death'), the discovery of something precious ('how he discovered his biological father'), personal loss ('how she lost her job'), and so on. Thus, if the story terminated on finding 404 Pine Street, it would lapse into insignificance. It is only when the search for a much-desired apartment is successful that we have a good story. In a related vein, Macintyre (1981) proposes that 'narrative requires an evaluative framework in which good or bad character helps to produce unfortunate or happy outcomes' (p. 456). It is also clear that this demand for a valued endpoint introduces a strong cultural component (traditionally called 'subjective bias') into the story. Life itself could hardly be said to be composed of separable events, a subpopulation of which constitute endpoints. Rather, the articulation of an event and its position as an endpoint are derived from the culture's ontology and construction of value. Through verbal artistry, 'the brushing of her fingers on my sleeve' emerges as an event, and depending on the story, may serve as the beginning of or the conclusion to a romance. In addition, events as we define them do not contain intrinsic value. Fire in itself is neither good nor bad; we invest it with value depending generally on whether it serves what we take to be valuable functions (cooking food) or not (destroying the kitchen). Only within a cultural perspective can 'valued events' be made intelligible.

Selecting events relevant to the endpoint Once an endpoint has been established it more or less dictates the kinds of events that can figure in the account, thus greatly reducing the myriad candidates for 'eventhood'. An intelligible story is one in which events serve to make the goal more or less probable, accessible, important, or vivid. Thus, if a story is about winning a soccer match ('how we won the game'), the most relevant events are those that bring that goal closer or make it more distant ('Tom's first kick bounced off the goal, but on the next attack he deflected the ball into the net with the twist of his head'). Only at the risk of inanity would one introduce a note on fifteenth-century monastic life or a hope for future space travel unless it could be shown that such matters were significantly related to winning the match ('..Juan got his inspiration for the tactic from reading about fifteenth-century religious practices'). An account of the day ('It was crisp and sunny') would be

GERGEN I SELF-NARRATION IN SOCIAL LIFE 251

acceptable in the narrative, since it makes the events more vivid, but a description of the weather in some remote country would seem idiosyncratic. Again we find that narrative demands have ontological consequences. One is not free to include all that takes place, but only that which is relevant to the story's conclusion.

1be ordering of events Once a goal has been established and relevant events selected, the events are usually placed in an ordered arrangement. As Ong 0982) indicates, the bases for such order (importance, interest value, timeliness, and so on) may change with history. The most widely used contemporary convention is perhaps that of a linear, temporal sequence. Certain events, for example, are said to occur at the beginning of the football match, and these precede the events that are said to take place toward the middle and at the end. It is tempting to say that the sequence of related events should match the actual sequence in which the events occurred, but this would be to confuse the rules of an intelligible rendering with what is indeed the case. Linear temporal ordering is, after all, a convention that employs an internally coherent system of signs; its features are not required by the world as it is. It may be applied to what is the case or not depending on one's purposes. Clock time may not be effective if one wishes to speak of one's 'experience 0f time passing in the dentist's chair', nor is it adequate if one wishes to describe relativity theory in physics or the circular rotation of seasons. In Bakhtin's (1981) terms, we may view temporal accounts as chronotopes - literary conventions governing space-time relationships or 'the ground essential for the ... representability of events' (p. 250). That yesterday preceded today is a conclusion demanded only by a culturally specific chronotope.

Stability of identity The well-formed narrative is typically one in which the characters (or objects) in the story possess a continuous or coherent identity across time. A given protagonist cannot felicitously serve as a villain at one moment and a hero in the next or demonstrate powers of genius unpredictably interspersed with moronic actions. Once defined by the storyteller, the individual (or object) will tend to retain its identity or function within the story. There are obvious exceptions to this general tendency, but most are cases in which the story attempts to explain the change itself - how the frog became a prince or the impoverished young man achieved financial success. Causal forces (such as war, poverty, education) may be introduced that bring about change in an individual (or object), and for dramatic effect a putative identity may give way to 'the real' (a trustworthy professor may tum out to be an arsonist). In general, however, the well-formed story does not tolerate protean personalities.

<;ausal linkages By contemporary standards the ideal narrative is one that provides an explanation for the outcome. As it is said, The king died and then the queen died' is but a rudimentary story; 'The king died and then the queen died of grief' is the beginning of a veritable plot. As Ricoeur (1981) puts it, 'Explanations must ... be woven into the narrative tissue' (p. 278). Explanation is typically achieved

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by selecting events that are by common standards causally linked. Each event should be a product of that which has preceded it ('Because the rain came we fled indoors'; 'As a result of his operation he couldn't meet his class'). This is not to presume that a universal conception of causality is insinuated into all well­formed stories: what may be included within the acceptable range of causal forms is historically and culturally dependent. Many scientists thus wish to limit discussions of causality to the Humean variety; social philosophers often prefer to see reason as the cause of human action; botanists often find it more convenient to employ teleological forms of causality. Regardless of one's preference in causal models, when events within a narrative are related in an interdependent fashion, the outcome approximates more closely the well-formed story.

Demarcation signs Most properly formed stories employ signals to indicate the beginning and the end. As Young 0982) has proposed, the narrative is 'framed' by various rule­governed devices that indicate when one is entering the 'tale world', or the world of the story. 'Once upon a time ... ','Did you hear the one about ... ','You can't imagine what happened to me on the way over here ... ',or 'Let me tell you why I'm so happy .. .' would all signal the audience that a narrative is to follow. Endings may also 0 be signalled by phrases ('That's it .. .','So now you know .. .') but need not be. Laughter at the end of a joke may indicate the exit from the tale world, and often the description of the story's point is sufficient to indicate that the tale world is terminated.

While in many contexts these criteria are essential to the well-formed narrative, it is important to note their cultural and historical contingency. As Mary Gergen's 0992) explorations of autobiography suggest, men are far more likely to accommodate themselves to the prevailing criteria for 'proper storytelling' than women. Women's autobiographies are more likely to be structured around multiple endpoints and to include materials unrelated to any particular endpoint. With the modernist explosion in literary experimentation, the demand for well­formed narratives in serious fiction has also diminished. In postmodern writing narratives may turn ironically self-referential, demonstrating their own artifice as texts and the ways in which their efficacy depends on still other narratives (Dipple, 1988).

Does it matter whether narratives are well formed in matters of daily living? As we have seen, the use of narrative components would appear to be vital in creating a sense of reality in accounts of self. As Rosenwald '.ind Ochberg 0992) put it, 'How individuals recount their histories - what they emphasize and omit, their stance as protagonists or victims, the relationship the story establishes between teller and audience - all shape what individuals can claim of their own lives. Personal stories are not merely a way of telling someone (or oneself) about one's life; they are the means by which identities may be fashioned' (p. 1). The social utility of well-formed narrative is more concretely revealed in research on courtroom testimony. In Reconstructing Reality in the Courtroom, Bennett and Feldman 0981) subjected research participants to forty-seven testimonies that either attempted to recall actual events or were fictional contrivances. Although ratings of the stories revealed that the participants were unable to discriminate

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between the genuine and fictional accounts, an analysis of those accounts believed to be genuine as opposed to false proved interesting: participants made their judgements largely according to the approximation of the stories to well­formed narratives. Stories believed to be genuine were those in which events relevant to the endpoint were dominant and causal linkages among elements more numerous. In further research, Lippman (1986) experimentally varied the extent to which courtroom testimonies demonstrated the selection of events relevant to an endpoint, the causal linkages between one event and another, and the diachronic ordering of events. Testimonies that approximated the well-formed narrative in these ways were consistently found to be more intelligible and the witnesses to be more rational. Thus, the self-narratives of daily life may not always be well formed, but under certain circumstances their structure may be essential.

Varieties of narrative form

By using these narrative conventions we generate a sense of coherence and direction in our lives. They acquire meaning, and what happens is suffused with significance. Certain forms of narrative are broadly shared within the culture; they are frequently used, easily identified, and highly functional. In a sense, they constitute a syllabary of possible selves. What account can be given of these more stereotypic narratives? The question here is similar to that concerning fundamental plot lines. Since Aristotelian times philosophers and literary theorists, among others, have attempted to develop a formal vocabulary of plot. As is sometimes argued, there may be a foundational set of plots from which all stories are derived. To the extent that people live through narrative, a foundational family of plots would place a limit on the range of life trajectories.

[. .. ] As we have seen, a story's endpoint is weighted with value. Thus a victory, a

consummated affair, a discovered fortune, or a prizewinning paper can all serve as proper story endings, while on the opposite pole of the evaluative continuum would fall a defeat, a lost love, and a squandered fortune, or a professional failure. We can view the various events that lead up to the story's end (the selection and ordering of events) as moving through two-dimensional, evaluative space. As one approaches the valued goal over time the storyline becomes more positive; as one approaches failure or disillusionment one moves in a negative direction. All plots, then, can be converted to a linear form in terms of their evaluative shifts over time. This allows us to isolate three rudimentary forms of narrative.

The first may be described as a stability narrative, that-is, one that links events so that the individual's trajectory remains essentially unchanged in relation to a goal or outcome; life simply goes on, neither better nor worse. The stability narrative could be developed at any level along the evaluative continuum. At the

, upper end an individual might conclude, for example, 'I am still as attractive as I used to be', or at the lower end, 'I continue to be haunted by feelings of failure.' As we can also see, each of these narrative summaries possesses inherent implications for the future: in the former, the individual might conclude that he or she will continue to be attractive for the foreseeable future, and in the latter, that feelings of failure will persist regardless of circumstance.

254 PART THREE READING EIGHTEEN

The stability narrative may be contrasted with two others, the progressive narrative, which links together events so that the movement along the evaluative dimension over time is incremental, and the regressive narrative, in which movement is decremental. The progressive narrative is the Panglossian account of life - ever better in every way. It could be represented by the statement, 'I am really learning to overcome my shyness and be more open and friendly with people.' The regressive narrative, in contrast, depicts a continued downward slide: 'I can't seem to control the events in my life anymore. It's been one series of catastrophes after another.' Each of these narratives also implies directionality, the former anticipating further increments and the latter further decrements.

As should be clear, these three narrative forms, stability, progressive, and regressive, exhaust the fundamental options for the direction of movement in evaluative space. As such, they may be considered rudimentary bases for other more complex variants. Theoretically one may envision a potential infinity of variations on these simple forms. However, in various historical conditions the culture may limit itself to a truncated repertoire of possibilities. Let us consider several prominent narrative forms in contemporary culture. There is first the

c tragic narrative. The tragedy, in this sense, would tell the story of the rapid downfall of one who had achieved high position: a progressive narrative is followed by a rapid regressive narrative. In contrast, in the r;:omedy-romance, a regressive narrative is followed by a progressive narrative. Life events become increasingly problematic until the denouement, when happiness is restored to the major protagonists. This narrative is labelled comedy-romance because it conflates the Aristotelian forms. If a progressive narrative is followed by a stability narrative, we have what is commonly known as the happily-ever-after myth, which is widely exemplified in traditional courtship. And we also recognize the heroic saga as a series of progressive-regressive phases. In this case, the individual may characterize his or her past as a continuous array of battles against the powers of darkness. [. . .]

Narrative form in two populations: an application

As I pointed out, in order to maintain intelligibility in the culture, the story one tells about oneself must employ the commonly accepted rules of narrative construction. Narrative constructions of broad cultural usage form a set of ready­made intelligibilities; in effect; they offer a range of discursive resources for the social construction of the self. At first glance it would appear that narrative forms do not impose such constraints. Theoretically, as our analysis makes dear, the number of potential story forms approaches infinity. At the same time, it is also clear that there is a certain degree of agreement among analysts in Western culture, from Aristotle to the present, suggesting that certain story forms are more readily eµiployed than others; in this sense, forms of self-narrative may likewise be constrained. Consider the person who characterizes him or herself by means of a stability narrative: life is directionless; it is merely moving in a steady, monotonous fashion neither toward nor away from a goal. Such a person would seem an apt candidate for psychotherapy. Similarly, one who characterizes his or her life as a repetitive pattern in which each positive occurrence is immediately followed by a negative one, and vice versa, would be regarded with suspicion.

GERGEN I SELF-NARRATION IN SOCIAL LlFE 255

We simply do not accept such life stories as approximating reality. In contrast, if one could make sense of one's life today as the result of 'a long struggle upward', a 'tragic decline', or a continuing saga in which one suffers defeats but rises from the ashes to achieve success, we are fully prepared to believe. One is not free to have simply any form of personal history. Narrative conventions do not, then, command identity, but they do invite certain actions and discourage others.

In this light it is interesting to explore how various American subcultures characterize their life histories. Let us consider two contrasting populations: adolescents and the elderly. In the former case, twenty-nine youths between the ages of nineteen and twenty-one were asked to chart their life history along a general evaluative dimension (Gergen and Gergen, 1988). Drawing on recollections from their earliest years to the present, how would they characterize their state of general well-being? The characterizations were to be made with a single 'life line' in a two-dimensional space. The most positive periods of their history were to be represented by an upward displacement of the line, the negative periods by a downward displacement. What graphic forms might these self-characterizations take? Do young adults generally portray themselves as part of a happily-ever-after story, a heroic saga in which they overcome one peril after another? More pessimistically, does life appear to be growing ever bleaker after the initially happy years of childhood? [. . .] The results show the general narrative form employed by this group of young adults is unlike any of those conjectured above; it is, rather, that of the comedy-romance. On the average, these young adults tended to view their lives as happy at an early age, beset with difficulty during the adolescent years, but now on an upward swing that bodes well for the future. They have confronted the tribulations of adolescence and emerged victorious.

In these accounts there is a sense in which the narrative form largely dictates memory. Life events don't seem to influence the selection of the story form; to a large degree it is the narrative form that sets the grounds for which events count as important. Let us consider the content through which these adolescents justified the use of the comedy-romance. They were asked to describe the events occurring at the most positive and the most negative periods on their life line. The content of these events proved highly diverse. The positive events included success in a school play, experiences with friends, owning a pet, and discovering music, while low periods resulted from such wide-ranging experiences as moving to a new town, failing at school, having parents with marital problems, and losing a friend. In effect, the 'adolescent crisis' does not appear to reflect any single objective factor. Instead, the participants seem to have used the available narrative form and employed whatever 'facts' they could to justify and vivify their selection. -

More generally, it seems that when the typical young adult describes his or her life history in brief for an anonymous audience, it approximates the narrative form of what I described as the typical television drama (comedy-romance). An informative contrast to this preference is supplied by a sample of seventy-two persons ranging in age from sixty-three to ninety-three years (M. Gergen 1980). In this case, each respondent was interviewed about his or her life experiences. Respondents were asked to describe their general sense of well-being during various periods of life: when were the happiest days, why did things change, in

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what direction is life now progressing, and so on. These responses were coded so that the results were comparable to the young adult sample. The typical narrative of the older person follows the shape of a rainbow: the young adult years were difficult, but a progressive narrative enabled the achievement of a peak of well-being somewhere between the ages of fifty and sixty. Life since these 'golden years', however, has been on a downward trajectory. Aging is depicted as a regressive narrative.

Such results may seem reasonable, reflecting the natural physical decline in aging. But narratives are not the products oflife itself, they are constructions of life - and they could be otherwise. 'Aging as decline' is but a cultural convention and so is subject to change. It is at this point that we must also question the role of the social sciences in fostering the view that the life course is a rainbow. The psychological literature is replete with factual accounts of early 'development' and late 'decline' (Gergen and Gergen, 1988). To the extent that such views make their way into public consciousness, they give the elderly little sense of hope or optimism. Different views of what is important in aging - such as those that have been adopted in many Asian cultures - would allow social scientists to articulate far more positive and enabling possibilities. [. . .)

Multiplicity in narration

[. . .) The traditional view of self-conception presumes a core identity, an integrally

coherent view of the self against which one can gauge whether actions are authentic or artificial. As it is said, an individual without a sense of core identity is without direction, without a sense of position or place, lacking the fundamental assurance that he or she is a worthy person. My argument here, however, throws all such assumptions into question. How often does one compare actions with some core image, for example, and why should we believe that there is but a single and enduring core? Why must one value a fixed sense of position or place and how often does one question one's worthiness? By shifting the emphasis from internal self-perceptions to the process of social intelligibility we can open new theoretical domains with different consequences for cultural life. Thus, even though it is common practice to view each person as possessing 'a life story', if selves are realized within social encounters there is good reason to believe that there is no one story to tell. Our common participation in the culture will typically expose us to a wide variety of narrative forms, from the rudimentary to the complex. We enter relationships with the potential to use any of a wide number of forms. Just as an experienced skier approaching an incline has a variety of techniques for an effective descent, so we can construct the relationship among our life experiences in a variety of ways. At a minimum, effective socialization should equip us to interpret our lives as stable, as improving, or as in decline. And with a little additional training, we can develop the capacity to envision our lives as tragedy, comedy, or heroic saga (see also Mancuso and Sarbin, 1983 on 'second-order selves' and Gubrium, Holstein, and Buckholdt, 1994 on multiple constructions of the life course). The more capable we are in constructing and reconstructing our self-narrative, the more broadly capable we are in effective relationships.

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To illustrate this multiplicity, research participants were asked to draw graphs indicating their feelings of satisfaction in their relationships with their mother, their father, and their academic work over the years. These graph lines pose a striking contrast to the 'generalized well-being' account depicted earlier. There, the students portrayed their general life course as a comedy-romance - a positive childhood followed by an adolescent fall from grace and capped by a positive ascent. However, in the case of their father and their mother, participants tended most frequently to select progressive narratives - slow and continuous for the father but more sharply accelerated more recently for the mother. For both parents, they portrayed their relationships as steadily improving. Yet, although they were attending a highly competitive college, the students tended to depict their feeling of satisfaction with their academic work as one of steady decline - a regressive narrative that left them on the brink of despair in the present.

[. . .]

The interknitting of identities

In this chapter I have attempted to develop a view of narration as a discursive resource and of its richness and potentials as constituting a historical legacy available in varying degree to all within the culture. To possess an intelligible self - a recognizable being with both a past and a future, requires a borrowing from the cultural repository. In Bakhtin's (1981) sense, to be an intelligible person requires an act of ventriloquation. However, as developed here, there is also a strong emphasis on ongoing interchange. Narration may appear to be monologic, but its success in establishing identity will inevitably rely on dialogue. It is in this context that I wish finally to draw attention to ways in which narrated identities are interwoven within the culture. It is particularly useful to touch on self-narration and moral community, interminable negotiation, and reciprocal identities.

As I have suggested, self-narratives are immersed within processes of ongoing interchange. In a broad sense they serve to unite the past with the present and to signify future trajectories (Csikszentmihalyi and Beattie, 1979). It is their significance for the future that is of special interest here, because it sets the stage for moral evaluation. To maintain that one has always been an honest person (stability narrative) suggests that one can be trusted. To construct one's past as a success story (progressive narrative) implies a future of continued advancement. On the other hand, to portray oneself as losing one's abilities because of increasing age (regressive narrative) generates the expectation that one will be less energetic in the future. The important point here is that as these implications are realized in action they become subject to social appraisal. Others may find the actions and outcomes implied by these narratives (according to .current conventions) coherent with or contradictory to the tellings. To the extent that such actions conflict with these accounts, they cast doubt on their validity, and social censure may result. In Maclntyre's (1981) terms, ill, matters of moral deliberation, 'I can only answer the question "What am I to do?" if I can answer the prior question "Of what story or stories do I find myself a part?"' (p. 201)., What this means is that self-narrative is not simply a derivative of past encounters, reassembled within ongoing relationships; once used, it establishes

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the grounds for moral being within the community. It establishes reputation, and it is the community of reputations that form the core of a moral tradition. In effect, the performance of self-narrative secures a relational future.

[. . .]

This continuing negotiation of narrative identity is complicated by a final relational feature. So far I have treated narratives as if they were solely concerned with the temporal trajectory of the protagonist alone. This conception must be expanded. The incidents typically woven into a narrative are the actions not only of the protagonist but of others as well. In most instances the actions of others contribute vitally to the events linked in narrative sequence. For example, to justify his account of continuing honesty, an individual might describe how a friend unsuccessfully tempted him to cheat; to illustrate achievement, he might show how another person was vanquished in a competition; in speaking of lost capabilities he might point to the alacrity of a younger person's performance. In all cases, the actions of others become an integral part of narrative intelligibility. In this sense, constructions of the self require a supporting cast.

The implications of this need for context are broad indeed. First, in the same way that individuals usually command the privilege of self-definition ('I know myself better than others know me'), others also demand rights in defining their own actions. Thus, as one uses the actions of others to make oneself intelligible, one becomes reliant on thelr accord. In the simplest case, if the other is present, no account of one's actions can stand without the agreement that 'Yes, that's how it was.' If others are not willing to accede to their assigned parts, then one cannot rely on their actions within a narrative. If others fail to see their actions as 'offering temptation', the actor can scarcely boast of continued strong character; if others can show that they were not really vanquished in a competition, the actor can scarcely use the episode as a stepping-stone in a success story. Narrative validity, then, depends strongly on the affirmation of others.

This reliance on others places the actor in a position of precarious interdependence, for in the same way that self-intelligibility depends on whether others agree about their own place in the story, so their own identity depends on the actor's affirmation of them. An actor's success in sustaining a given self­narrative is fundamentally dependent on the willingness of others to play out certain pasts in relationship to him. In Schapp's (1976) terms, each of us is 'knitted into' the historical constructions of others just as they are into ours. As this delicate interdependence of constructed narratives suggests, a fundamental aspect of social life is the network of reciprocating identities. Because one's identity can be maintained for only so long as others play their proper supporting role, and because one is required in turn to play supporting roles in their constructions, the moment any participant chooses to renege, he or she threatens the array of interdependent constructions.

An adolescent may tell his mother that she has been a 'bad mot_her', thus potentially destroying her stability narrative as a 'good mother'. At the same time, however, he risks having his mother reply that she always felt his character was so inferior, he never merited her love; his continuing narrativ_e of 'self as· good' is thus in jeopardy. A lover may announce to her male partner that he no longer interests her as he once did, thus potentially crushing his stability narrative; however, he may reply that he has long been bored with her and is happy to be

GERGEN I SELF-NARRATION IN SOCIAL LIFE 259

relieved of his lover's role. In such instances, when the parties in the relationship pull out of their supporting roles, the result is a general degeneration of identities. Identities, in this sense, are never individual; each is suspended in an array of precariously situated relationships. The reverberations of what takes place here and now - between us - may be infinite.

References Bakhtin, M. (1981) The Dialogic Imagination, Austin, Texas, University of Texas Press. Bennett, W.L. and Feldman, M.S. 0981) Reconstrncting Reality in the Courtroom, New Brunswick,

NJ., Rutgers University Press. Britton, B.K. and Pellegrini, A.D. (eds) 0990) Nan-ative Thought and Nan-ative Language, Hillsdale,

NJ., Erlbaum. Bruner,]. 0986) Actual Minds, Possible Worlds, Cambridge, Harvard University Press. Bruner, ]. (1990) Acts of Meaning, Cambridge, Harvard University Press. Carr, D. (1984) Time, Nan-ative and History, Bloomington, Indiana University Press. Charme, S.L. (1984) Meaning and Myth in the Study of Lives: A Sartrean Perspective, Philadelphia,

University of Pennsylvania Press. Cohler, B.J. 0982) 'Personal narrative and the life-course' in P. Battles and O.G. Brim (eds) Life-span

Development and Behavior, New York, Academic Press. Csikszentmihalyi, M., and Beattie, 0. 0979) 'Life themes: a theoretical and empirical explanation of

their origins and effects', journal of Humanistic Psychology, vol. 19, pp. 45-63. de Waele, J.P. and Harre, R. 0976) 'The personality of individuals' in R. Harre (ed.) Personality,

Oxford, Blackwell. Dipple, E. (1988) Tbe Unresolvable Plot: Reading Contemporary Fiction, London, Routledge. Gergen, K.]. and Gergen, M.M. 0988) 'Narrative and the self as relationship' in L. Berkowitz, (ed.)

Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, San·Diego, Academic Press. Gergen, M.M. 0980) 'Antecedents and consequences of self-attributional preferences in later life',

PhD diss., Temple University. Gergen, M.M. 0992) 'Life stories: pieces of a dream' in G. Rosenwald and R. Ochberg (eds) Telling

Lives, New Haven, Yale University Press. Gubrium, J., Holstein, ].A. and Buckholdt, D. (1994) Constrncting the Life Course, Dix Hills, NY,

General Hall. Hardy, B. (1968) 'Towards a poetics of fiction: an approach through narrative', Novel, vol. 2, pp. 5-14. Harre, R. and Secord, P. (1972) Tbe Explanation of Social Behaviour, Oxford, Blackwell. Josselson, R. and Lieblich, A. (1993) Tbe Nan-ative Study of Lives, London, Sage. Kelly, M.H. and Keil, F.C. (1985) 'The more things change ... : metamorphoses and conceptual

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Beverly Hills, CA, Sage. Lippman, S. (1986) 'Nothing but the facts, ma'am': the impact of testimony construction and narrative

style on jury decisions'. Unpublished senior thesis, Swarthmore College. Macintyre, A. 0981) After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, London, Duckworth. Mancuso, J.C. and Sarbin, T.R. (1983) 'The self-narrative in the enactment of roles' in T.R. Sarbin and

K.E. Scheibe (eds) Studies in Social Identity, New York, Praeger. Mandler, J.M. (1984) Stories, Scripts and Scenes: Aspects of Schema Theory, Hillsdale, NJ, Erlbaum. McAdams, D.P. 1985. Power, intimacy and the life story. New York: Guilford. McAdams, D.P. (1993) Tbe Stories We Live By, New York, William Morrow and Sons. Mink, L.A. (1969) 'History and fiction as modes of comprehension', New Literary History, vol. 1,

pp. 556-69. Nehamas, A. (1985) Nietzsche: Life as Literature, Cambridge, Harvard. University Press. Ong, W.]. (1982) Orality and Literacy, London, Methuen. Polkinghome, D.E. 0988) Nan-ative Knowing and the Human Sciences, Albany, State University of

New York Press. Ricoeur, P. (1981) Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences, trans.]. Thompson, New York, Cambridge

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Rosenwald, G.C. and Ochberg, R.L. (1992) 'Introduction: life stories, cultural politics, and self­understanding' in G.C. Rosenwald and R.L. Ochberg (eds) Storied Lives: The Cultural Politics of Self-understanding, New Haven, Yale University Press.

Schank, R.C. and Abelson, R.P. (1977) Scripts, Plans, Goals and Understanding, Hillsdale, NJ, Erlbaum.

Schapp, W. (1976) In Gescbicbten verstrickt zum Sein von Mensch und Ding, Wiesbaden, Heymann. White, M. and Epston, D. (1990) Narrative Means to Therapeutic Ends, New York, Norton. Young, K. (1982) 'Edgework: frame and boundary in the phenomenology of narrative', Semiotica, vol.

41, pp. 277-315.

READING NINETEEN

Positioning: The Discursive Production of Selves Bronwyn Davies and Rom Harre

Source: Davies, B. and Harre, R. 0990) 'Positioning: the discursive production of selves', journal of the Theory of Social Behaviour, vol. 20, pp. 43-65.

The idea for this paper emerged out of a discussion about the problems inherent in the use of the concept of role in developing a social psychology of selfhood. We explore the idea that the concept of 'positioning' can be used to facilitate the thinking of linguistically oriented social analysts in ways that the use of the concept of 'role' prevented. In particular, the new concept helps focus attention on dynamic aspects of encounters in contrast to the way in which the use of 'role' serves to highlight static, formal and ritualistic aspects. The view of language in which positioning is to be understood is the immanentist view expounded by Harris (1982), in which language exists only as concrete occasions of language in use. La langue is an intellectualizing myth - only la parole is psychologically and socially real. This position is developed in contrast to the linguistic tradition in which 'syntax', 'semantics' and 'pragmatics' are used in a way that implies an abstract realm of causally potent entities shaping actual speech. In our analysis and our explanation, we invoke concepts such as 'speech act', 'indexicality' and 'context', that is the concepts central to ethogenic or new paradigm psychology (Davies, 1982; Harre, 1979; Harre and Secord, 1973). Feminist poststructuralist theory has interesting parallels with this position. The recognition of the force of 'discursive practices', the ways in which people are 'positioned' through those practices and the way in which the individual's 'subjectivity' is generated through the learning and use of certain discursive practices are commensurate with the 'new psycho-socio-linguistics' (Davies, 1989; Henriques et al., 1984; Potter and Wetherell, 1987; Weedon, 1987).

[. .. ]

Conversation as joint action for the production of determinate speech acts

Since 'positioning' is largely a conversational phenomenon we must make clear at what level of analysis speaking together is to be taken as relevantly conversation. We take conversation to be a form of social interaction the products of which are also social, such as interpersonal relations. We must, therefore, select analytical concepts that serve to reveal conversation as a structured set of speech acts, that is as sayings and doings of types defined by reference to their social (illocutionary) force. This level of analysis must be extended to include non-verbal contributions to conversation. For example it has